This invention relates to circuits for producing musical tones and, more particularly, to a circuit for producing musical tones which is sufficiently small to be incorporated within a miniature toy musical instrument such as a miniature piano.
Many electronic circuits have been developed over the years for producing musical tones. Some of these circuits include a microprocessor used to process signals from a keyboard and to generate a variety of musical tones in response to these signals. One example of this type of circuit is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,226,155, issued Oct. 7, 1980, and assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
The use of microprocessors has enabled the construction of rather sophisticated music synthesizers designed to be played as a musical instrument by persons trained in the field of music. Such music synthesizers usually include a variety of controls in addition to a keyboard to enable the user to realistically simulate the sounds of several musical instruments.
Many toy musical instruments have also been developed over the years. Some of these toy instruments are configured in the form of a piano. Generally, these toy pianos include a group of metal bars each of which sounds a tone when struck by a key. The sounds thus produced, however, do not realistically reproduce the sounds of a piano.
Accordingly it is desirable to provide a toy piano capable of producing realistic piano sounds like the sounds produced by music synthesizers of the type described above. It is also desirable to produce a miniature toy piano which is designed to be played by a miniature doll. Such a piano must be both small in size and inexpensive to produce. It has been found, however, that the relatively complicated electronic circuits employed in music synthesizers are both too large and too expensive to be used in a miniature toy piano.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved circuit for producing musical tones.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a new and improved circuit for producing musical tones which is sufficiently small and inexpensive to be used in the construction of a miniature toy piano.